Why do marketing initiatives fail?
Written by Claire Scaramanga
Many marketing initiatives fail for a number of reasons: poor planning, not clearly communicating the proposition, or not understanding what the customer wants.
You’ve spent weeks crafting your launch campaign for your new product, it’s gone live and you wait for the orders to pour in. Only they don’t. And what’s worse, you don’t know why.
Many marketing initiatives fail for a number of reasons: poor planning, not clearly communicating the proposition, or not understanding what the customer wants.
The latter is the most important element for Marketing, indeed the entire business, to get right. The days of “build it and they will come” are far behind us. Today’s successful marketing is based on an in-depth understanding of customers and their individual needs and drivers. This is equally true of the consumer and business customer.
Customer knowledge allows you to design products and services that give customers what they want, not only now, but also in the future.
It allows you to set pricing so it appeals to your target audience, as well as develop communications and promotions that talk their language and create a strong desire to buy.
Knowing where your customers buy allows you to select the right outlets and partners to get your product or service in front of them, now that you’ve persuaded them to choose you.
But it’s not just your customers you need to be close to; you also need to know your competitors to stay ahead of the game – “keep your friends close and your enemies closer” (Sun Tzu).
